


Three little words

by sunnysideup



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, End of the world type stuff but with a groundhog day similarish thing going on, M/M, Soulmates sort of too, smidgeon of fluff (they already know they love each other but its not the ideal situation)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 12:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21243815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnysideup/pseuds/sunnysideup
Summary: Somehow they find each other no matter how often it ends.Three little words Liam didn’t utter can’t be the key to it all can it?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote the first part a while back, felt the urge to finish this week. Thanks so much to Marie for her encouragement for the second chapter. xx
> 
> First chapter is Zayn's POV, second is Liam's. x

Zayn finds him on the last day of it all. 

Finds him on the edge of a cliff staring out at the sea, head bowed, hands in his pockets.

Should be sad that it’s only today he found him. This feeling all his life that he’s missed out on something, been building up to that moment of completion, that moment of feeling like its all okay now. 

in the end, he only finds it, or _him_, hours or minutes or however long before everything ends. 

He’s a couple of steps behind him now.

Close enough that he could stretch his arms out, lean forward and touch him. 

Maybe he’d startle. Zayn doesn’t think he would. 

Close enough that he can say ‘Hello’ except that one word doesn’t feel like enough. 

He wants the words to never stop tumbling out his mouth, talk about how long he’s waited for this, how for some reason instead of trying to get home in time, he got in his car, drove in the opposite direction and ended up here.

Next to the lighthouse as it casts a melancholy glow onto the sea. 

Next to people scattered across the cliff edge. It’s not just him and this stranger. Zayn spares a small glance to see how many there are, wonders how many are just like him.

Or maybe they’re people who’ve known each other for years, self-destructing till that broadcast most people had worried would happen, but never talked about for fear it would, changed everything and all that matters is being here. Together. 

“You look cold, it’s like you aren’t prepared for this.”

His voice, it’s like Zayn imagined. Warm, deep, soothing in a different kind of way to his dad and somehow so familiar. And as Zayn directs his attention,_ all _of his attention back onto the man who’s turned around now, his smile is even warmer.

Could convince a man that far from being the end, it’s only the beginning. 

“Who could be prepared for this?” Zayn questions.

Knows the other man didn’t mean it like that, but the small choked off laugh is something Zayn would have done in his place. 

“Yeah true, it’s funny cause I realised before I got in the car, had just spoken to mum, promised I’d do everything I could to get home in time but I knew, sort of knew all day and so I packed accordingly, and just in case, I packed another one.”

He bends down then to a small bag and pulls out a hoodie which he throws towards Zayn who catches it but doesn’t put it on, holds it close to him instead.

“I’m Liam.”

“Zayn.”

“It sounds good together, Liam and Zayn, maybe it’s just me though,” Liam says with a smile that’s sort of shy. The lines that show when the beam of light from the lighthouse shines on them for a moment confirm Zayn’s thoughts it’s frequent, Liam smiling.

“It does,” he replies, his head’s filled with a million questions, a million things to ask Liam about his life except it’s all so immaterial now. 

Nothing else matters except right now, about not wasting a single second. 

Liam edges forward, close enough to touch easily, to breathe in the way Liam smells mainly of the night air, maybe a little bit of cigarettes and faintly of cologne. A cologne Zayn will never get the chance to buy him for his birthday or to mix in with his own. 

“We should make a deal that wherever it takes us, alternate universes/next lives whatever I mean, we meet much earlier than this. Feel like such a waste all the time leading up to this, just waiting for you and here you are and you’re like I imagined, every bit that I imagined but time’s run out on us, it’s so fucking unfair.”

Then Liam adds like it’s an afterthought.

“Maybe you don’t believe in them, next lives, other lives, alternate universes and all that and do you know what, neither do I but there has to be a reason for this, us finding each other only now, right? Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Zayn considers for a moment, just a fraction of a moment his response. Considers what words he could use, he could say he agrees, could say that he believes the whole point is to know each other enough by sight or smell that no matter what form they are in whatever alternate universe they find themselves in, these moments are enough to be able to just _know. _

Why waste words though? 

The low rumble and the clap of what sounds like thunder but probably isn’t as simple as that make his mind up for him and he drops the hoodie to the floor and raises his hand, his palm to lay gently against the back of Liam’s head while he places the other against the small of his back.

They’re close enough to kiss but instead for a moment, Zayn takes in Liam’s features, his full eyebrows, the plump nose, the smattering of facial hair and the way his brown eyes are blinking fast, holding back tears Zayn thinks he wants to shed too. 

But not of regret, not really, nor of grief, okay maybe just a bit, mostly it’s just relief that they _are_ here together. Just like their families are at home, exactly where they’re meant to be.

He doesn’t think when he leans forward and the way it happens, he thinks Liam must have the exact same thought at exactly the same time as they kiss, lips against each other’s but it’s not as urgent as he thought it would be.

Instead, it’s gentle, it’s two people like they’ve known each other all their life and it’s like a goodbye kiss at a railway station where there’s so much tenderness, so much love they’ve built together that it doesn’t need urgency or more like they’ve got all their lives to discover each other more. It’s not this desperate urge to discover everything because maybe in _this_ life or universe, it’s the last time. 

And maybe if Zayn was certain this was it, he’d be throwing away all convention and social decency and doing a hell of a lot more than kissing right now. 

Instead, he pulls away sees the way Liam’s lips are redder rather than the pink they were before, sees the way he licks at his lips and then giggles as he says.

“Never kissed a bloke with more facial hair than me before.”

They both laugh and their foreheads touch before pulling away and Zayn stares into Liam’s eyes.

It’s so bloody normal, so much like any couple discovering each other for the first time, when tonight is anything but and he’s reminded of that as he sees the tears fall freely down Liam’s cheeks. 

Feels moisture on his own face and they pull further apart but Zayn keeps his hand against Liam’s back as Liam wipes away a line of tears on Zayn’s face with his thumb.

He remembers Liam’s question just as there’s another sound, louder this time, and as the light in the lighthouse fails. 

“Now I know you, now I’ve seen you, and you’ve seen me, I know it won’t take as long next time or in that alternate universe, just like this time maybe we found each other quicker than last time and even if it’s just ten minutes longer next time and then twenty minutes the time after, each time it’ll take less time, each time it’ll give us longer.”

Liam tilts his head to one side, nods and smiles like he’s not got a single care in the world.

“_That’s_ the point.”

Zayn thinks he hears him say at the same he says it, thinks he sees a grin he’ll take with him wherever. 

Then he hears nothing. Till next time anyway 


	2. Chapter 2

Liam’s been practising for this moment his whole life. Not a single day has gone by since he was a teenager that he’s not been aware of this need to practice. 

The first thing he drew in GCSE Art as an eleven-year-old was two people reaching out to each other, fingertips so close to touching while the sky blew up around them. 

He’s oblivious to the panic, to the fatal hesitation that’ll make all the difference to those around him as he runs down the stairs, pumps his arms up then down and runs like never before.

Perhaps he’s like Richard Ashcroft in that video from all those years ago, knocking people over like skittles around him. Too focused on the goal, the only goal, the only thing that matters.

It doesn’t occur to him to get tired even as minutes fall behind him, even as screams and cries threaten to penetrate the wall of concentration he’s built up around him.

It’s only as he approaches the familiar streetlights, the ones that burn so brightly aside from the one on the corner that’s always flickered like a moth is permanently trapped inside, that he slows, that he becomes aware of the pit of fear that settled in his stomach years ago waking up again, waking up so violently that he almost stumbles.

He’s so close, just feet away and he can’t fail now, not when this has been the aim all along. Not getting promoted, not fulfilling the potential he had for all these years cause anyway those things just seemed to fall into his lap.

‘A charmed life’ they always said and under any other circumstances, Liam would have agreed. 

Wonders if any other version of him other than in this reality he’s stuck in, whether that Liam does agree, or does toil for things, struggles with life, struggles with money, struggles with all the things Liam wishes were his only concern.

“New record babe.”

The familiar voice pulls him from his thoughts and he can’t help himself, like some giddy teenager, he grins, shrugs a bit then he sobers. 

“Always best to do it when it matters most, right?”

The smile on Zayn’s face fades, just a small imperceptible nod and Liam wants to kick himself.

He doesn’t though because that’s wasting precious time. Instead, he walks the short remaining distance to the front door, the bright blue front door of this place in the centre of London that costs too much.

‘You’ll never be able to afford to pay that every month’ ringing in their ears from their parents.

Knowing that one day that wouldn’t be a concern was anything but easy but somehow still worth it. 

Zayn looks tired, little flecks of paint on his cheek that make him look like a kid rather than the thirtysomething he is, up all night working and then all day up to thirty minutes ago anyway, writing, painting like he always does when he’s in a purple patch creatively. 

It occurs to Liam to be sad that the world won’t know this latest round of his creations. The creations that could have been his big break.

Finally.

Liam pastes that thought to his memory bank. Commits it there. And it should all be futile to do it, except he knows differently. 

“What do we? What do  _ you _ want to do Li?”

The question, that question that never gets easier. The question that Liam’s answered in so many different ways before. 

The one that when it’s been Liam’s turn to ask Zayn’s answered another way altogether each time. 

The answer they’ve discussed at night, lying next to each other when touching felt too much or wrapped up in each other’s arms, laughing softly or crying at the whole feeling of ‘what’s the point’. 

It gets longer each time except those two, no make that three times when it was nothing but a glance or that time from Liam’s drawing. 

They even had a cat this time. Brian. Brian was like this commitment to hope neither of them felt but as each year passed, hope crept upon them like the dangerous thing it was.

Losing Brian felt like hope was overrated anyway. Long-life too, if all it meant was the depth of loss they felt. 

That was five years ago. They didn’t get a new cat, didn’t even entertain the thought of the ultimate dream…a dog. 

“I know,” Liam says breaking the silence and just like it’s almost written in the movies, Zayn tilts his head to one side, searching Liam’s eyes for just a matter of a couple of seconds and then smiles. 

They shut the front door behind them, step through the house together, past all the memories, the photographs, Zayn’s art, the awards Liam won ‘Best salesman this’ or ‘Best salesman that’. Past the telephone that’s ringing insistently.

Through the kitchen with the slow cooker still turned on and the coffee machine with that smell Liam’s grown to love though he hates drinking it. 

Out through the french doors, they’d put in themselves last year, past the bench and the barbecue that they fought over who was in charge of just back in summer.

Onto the grass and into the garden that they hadn’t cared about really till after Brian wasn’t here and they needed a focus. 

Past the carefully tended flowers, past the bird feeder attached to one of the fence posts, the bird feeder that the local squirrel had taken to stealing from to the bird feeder on the other side that Zayn had put up in response and somehow there’d be an uneasy truce. Birds on one side, squirrels the other. 

Past the bench with the fairy lights on it to illuminate even the darkest late autumn night that they’d sat in night after night putting the world to rights while slugging back cheap wine from Tesco or when they felt like pushing the boat out, M&S. 

To the trees, they’d planted two weeks after they lost Brian. Neither of them saying it was an idea that had formed in their heads, just one day finding each other at this point in the garden laughing and shaking their heads with fondness at how they were so alike and yet so different.

Silver birch and Cherry Blossom. 

One for new beginnings, so very Zayn, so very forward-looking, no looking back, no what might’ve been’s.

The other, for love, about love, the love that gives Liam the oxygen, the reason and everything Liam is and the beauty in that love that Zayn gives Liam. 

They’ll never see them mature fully. Just like every single time before.

A lot like Zayn and him, Liam thinks. 

Around them on the ground are the brown leaves from the birch tree and cherry blossoms.

It’s probably the prettiest time for this to happen. If Liam shut his eyes, it’s probably the quietest too. 

Even though they’re in London, even though just beyond the door back the way Liam came, there’s panic and so much more. 

Even though the phone is still ringing. 

Even though the wind is picking up now and the fence is creaking. 

Everything about all of the end changes each time, everything except the two of them. 

Everything except how wonderful Liam _ and  _ Zayn sounds to Liam’s ears.

They’ve had practice after all. Though it makes Liam wonder, why if they can remember bits of it and if they practice for it, why doesn’t everyone else? 

Is it really just them living out their very own version of Groundhog lives rather than days, or are they only ones to remember they are? 

Liam still doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. Knowing Zayn in multiple universes is a blessing of course, but losing Zayn even when it’s at the same time.

It's a pain like no other feeling on earth. 

Still, there’s no time for that, no time for dwelling when they have the whole of their next life to do it.

Hope for a bit longer next time, maybe a dog and a cat, maybe two dogs and two cats, maybe child-no definitely not. 

Be grateful for the fact that whatever this fate is for them, at least whoever decided it made it so it would be with this man next to him.

This man with the best laugh, the best smile, the best comebacks when they had blazing arguments, the best sex and the only person he ever wants to look forward to meeting each time for the first time and then living and dying with. 

Some people would probably give a thousand lives of their own for just shot at something like this.

“You always think too loudly every single time, love.”

Zayn’s sweeping away the little bit of hair that’s fallen over Liam’s eyes, smiling that little smile that has Liam weak at the knees each time.

Every single lifetime, there’s that eye freckle. 

Just like each time, there’s the birthmark that Zayn’s caressing with the thumb of his other hand right now. 

Liam catches sight then of number four tattoo on Zayn’s ring finger, just like Liam’s on his for when they aren’t wearing their wedding bands, just this little nod to sentimentality they’d capitulated to just two weeks ago.

He’s glad now. Something else that’s new for each lifetime, not just Brian or whoever will follow. 

The wind almost knocks them down right there and then and it’s not fear, it’s just anxiety that he won’t get the chance to say what he says each time.

Stuff the kisses, the tenderness, he just has to say it. 

Except, there’s a stronger gust of wind and a sharp pain in his head.

Then nothing. 

——

Awareness comes crashing down on him like a ton of bricks, and that’s new.

Normally each new life and each first thought is squabbling with his older sisters or falling off a swing set or a football bouncing off his head too hard.

Instead, there’s an insistent beeping noise and the sound of hushed voices, one louder, more constant than the others.

“Come back to me, please Li, don’t let this pass. “

He’s never dreamed of that voice so early on before and he’s really confused so he opens his eyes. 

Promptly shuts them again when he sees him. Screws his eyes shut and tries to pinch himself but his arms feel like they weigh thirty stone and when he does move one hand there’s something attached to it that pulls at his skin. 

“Open those eyes again Li, I get it you’re confused, you’re scared so am I, please?”

He’s never been one for ignoring that voice, especially with that tone in that voice so Liam does, he opens his eyes.

Zayn’s there, right in front of him, except it's not six-year-old Zayn, nor is it twelve-year-old Zayn or even eighteen-year-old Zayn.

It’s grown up Zayn. 

Grown-up Zayn with the facial hair and those tired eyes.

“What? How?” Liam croaks out, surprised at the way it hurts his throat to speak.

Zayn stands up, the chair he was sitting in pushed back making a scraping noise that’s loud in Liam’s head and he disappears slightly from sight which makes Liam panic. 

Then he’s suddenly in front of him again with what looks like water and a straw.

And Liam’s about to move his mouth towards it, he realises he’s parched and he’s got all these questions in his head that he can’t articulate with this throat this sore.

Then he sees it, and he wonders how he’ll ever find his words again. Then a thought occurs to him and it’s a superhuman effort, more superhuman than he could ever begin to imagine lifting a hand could be, he’s almost scared to but he has to 'cause either way whatever follows brings up so many questions. 

He shuts his eyes for maybe one or two seconds then opens them again with his hand higher, his fingers in full view.

One finger in full view and then he looks back up to Zayn who’s put the water down and is holding one hand up, though Liam’s only interested in one finger. 

He definitely hasn’t practiced his whole life or every single life for  _ this _ .

“It can’t be? Unless this…?”

It still hurts his throat but he doesn’t care. 

Zayn looks like he’s about to cry or has been crying, Liam notices.

“It can be Liam, it is, our cat Brian is still buried in our garden, the garden with the silver birch and the cherry blossom tree at the house with the bright blue door and the streetlight that still flashes except now it’s spring so it doesn’t need to come on and yet it still flashes, there’s still the job that’s been left open for you for the last few months while you’ve been here and the phone still rings off the hook waiting for you to answer it, oh and squirrel nutkin misses you too.”

Then quieter.

“Not as much as me though.” 

Zayn does cry then and sod it, Liam joins him 'cause he’s confused and a bit scared, and his head hurts, and there’s something unfamiliar stirring in his gut but it’s overtaken by a thought that comes from nowhere.

This thought of the thing he always said, every single time this happened, every single time they wondered why they were put through this and lost each other over and over again only to love each other the way they do each time. 

Except for this time when he didn’t get the chance and it can’t be as simple as that surely? Three little words he didn’t utter can’t be the key to it all can it?

Zayn smiles, watery and weak though it is, it’s still the most beautiful sight and the feeling in his gut, it’s not that unfamiliar really, it’s just it’s never been like this or at a time like this.

He should say something profound or normally Zayn would but he can barely muster the words. Again it strikes him that if this is what he dares to believe now it could be, he’s not prepared, at all, for what could be the first time in his life.

Add to that his own throat’s so sore and wait, Zayn said something about months so no wonder he looks like he’s been through hell.

There are three words that he wants to say like no other ...not the three words he missed out on saying cause knowing his luck saying them now will take it all away from him. 

Three words he’s said over and over again to Zayn the first time they’d lie next to each other. 

He musters up a smile, musters up some strength to lift up his head from the pillow and smiles.

“ _ This _ is new.”

Some say the sound of a baby crying for the first time is the most beautiful sound in the world. 

That’s just because they’ve never heard Zayn cry and laugh at the same time and say those other magical three words straight after.


End file.
